I don't deny that religion is very healthful to a lot of people. And as long as they don't try to convert me, I have, you know, nothing - and to interfere with the rights of people to believe other religions or to not believe in any religion at all - as long as they mind their own religion - perfectly all right with me...
Susan JacobyIt is easy to forget, since the Catholic Church is now the only large American religious denomination whose ecclesiastical hierarchy continues to oppose birth control, that only a century ago the leaders of nearly all churches were united in their resistance to any public discussion of the subject.
Susan JacobyI still do find the prayers of the Kaddish quite moving, and I just substitute in my mind nature, although that's what the founders did in a lot of their documents, too. They substituted nature or providence for God. I think that's what I do in my head with Jewish God.
Susan JacobyEvery brand of religion maintains, and is, a permanent mechanism for transmitting ideas and values - whether one regards those values as admirable or ridiculous. Secularist organizations, with their generally looser, nonhierarchical structures, lack the power to hand down and disseminate their heritage in such a systematic way.
Susan Jacoby